VirtualBox, anyone?

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Zootal - 29 Jul 2008 00:29 GMT

Anyone here tried the current version of VirtualBox? I'm playing with it now
to see which I like better. So far, VB seems to run much faster then VPC and
appears to use multiple cores. I could not get Win98 installed, however, it
crashed on install. Win2000 is up and running on it.

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Richard Cardona - 29 Jul 2008 04:44 GMT

> Anyone here tried the current version of VirtualBox? I'm playing with it now
> to see which I like better. So far, VB seems to run much faster then VPC and
> appears to use multiple cores. I could not get Win98 installed, however, it
> crashed on install. Win2000 is up and running on it.

I haven't tried it but I think the users at
http://forums.virtualbox.org/index.php

probably have.

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Zootal - 30 Jul 2008 16:51 GMT

>> Anyone here tried the current version of VirtualBox? I'm playing with it
>> now to see which I like better. So far, VB seems to run much faster then
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> probably have.

Most don't seem to have done so. Maybe I should write a comparison?

One weakness of Virtual PC is it's emulated display adaptor. VB uses a
"VirtualBox Graphics Adapter". I'm not sure what it emulates, but it is
flexible and robust. One of my biggest complaints about VPC is you can't put
it into 1680x1050 mode. With VB, you not only can, but you can actually
resize the entire window dynamically, and it changes it's resolution to
match. For example, right now I have it in 1264x409 because that is the size
I resized it to. It seems to accept any combination of height and width up
to the resolution of the host adaptor. And it doesn't just scale the
display - it actually changes it's resolution according to the size of the
VB windows.

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Stuart Crow - 30 Jul 2008 17:34 GMT

>>> Anyone here tried the current version of VirtualBox? I'm playing with it
>>> now to see which I like better. So far, VB seems to run much faster then
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
>display - it actually changes it's resolution according to the size of the
>VB windows.

I have found the opposite !
I have tried VirtualBox and DosBox on XP and Linux, also VirtualPC on
XP.
On Linux both DosBox and VirtualBox with vms of Wfw3.11, Win95 and Win
Me playing an old dos game called blood ran so slowly as to make the
game unplayable.
On XP VirtualBox ran Windows 3.11, 95 and Me very slowly and with 95
and Me I was limited to 16 colours and 640x480 screen. Again the game
was unplayable due to low speed.
DosBox ran the game well, with sound, 95 under VirtualPC also ran the
game very well, except with no sound.
Perhaps I should get more information about VirtualBox regarding these
high resolutions and speed.

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

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Jos Roijakkers - 30 Jul 2008 17:47 GMT

Zootal schreef:

>>> Anyone here tried the current version of VirtualBox? I'm playing with it
>>> now to see which I like better. So far, VB seems to run much faster then
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> display - it actually changes it's resolution according to the size of the
> VB windows.

VPC can be scaled to any resolution you want if you have VM Additions
installed. I can ran WinXP guest in 1440x900 as well as in 968x532
resolution. So screen resolution shouldn't be a drawback when using VPC.

One of the advantages of VPC is the networking facility: it is pretty
straight forward (just select the right network adapter in the VM
definition). When using VB need to choose NAT or other options as well.

Another big difference between VPC and VB is snapshotting. That is, VPC
does not support snapshots, VB does. On the other hand, VPC offers the
possibility to save or disregard disk changes on closing the VM. Both
methods have their own advantages and disadvantages.

As for stability I slightly prefer VPC over VB. And VPC seems to use
less memory than VB (resulting in more simultaneous VMs running at the
same time).

Besides WinXP and Vista, W2K, W98SE and OS2, VPC can also host Windows
for Workgroups 3.11, Ubuntu 8 and Fedora.

Bottom line: Since I don't want to buy the real VMware Workstation, my
vote is in favour of VPC over VB.
Just my 2 cents.

Jos

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Zootal - 31 Jul 2008 01:42 GMT

> VPC can be scaled to any resolution you want if you have VM Additions
> installed. I can ran WinXP guest in 1440x900 as well as in 968x532
> resolution. So screen resolution shouldn't be a drawback when using VPC.

VPC seems to have a max resolution of 1600 x 1200, and won't do 1680 x 1250.
Has anyone been able to get it to go higher? This is important to me because
I like to run it fullscreen on a 1680 x 1250 monitor. I stand corrected
about VB - I believe it's max is 1600 x 1050, for some reason I can't get it
into 1680 x 1250

> One of the advantages of VPC is the networking facility: it is pretty
> straight forward (just select the right network adapter in the VM
> definition). When using VB need to choose NAT or other options as well.

No disagreements here. VPC is much easier to set up networking. I could not
get the previous version of VB to work at all, it's only the current release
that I have working.

> Another big difference between VPC and VB is snapshotting. That is, VPC
> does not support snapshots, VB does. On the other hand, VPC offers the
> possibility to save or disregard disk changes on closing the VM. Both
> methods have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Haven't tried the snapshot feature. I like VPC being able to shutdown and
discard changes. I set it up the way I want, and everytime I start it up,
it's in the same known working state. No registry bloat, etc.

> As for stability I slightly prefer VPC over VB. And VPC seems to use less
> memory than VB (resulting in more simultaneous VMs running at the same
> time).

I think that VB will run on multiple cores. I'm not sure if two instances of
it will run on seperate cores or not. I can crash VB quite nicely with Win98

:).

> Besides WinXP and Vista, W2K, W98SE and OS2, VPC can also host Windows for
> Workgroups 3.11, Ubuntu 8 and Fedora.

I could not get Win98 to work with VB. Not sure why - it installed to the
point where it was detecting hardware, then it crashed VB. VPC seems to work
very will with older versions of windows.

> Bottom line: Since I don't want to buy the real VMware Workstation, my
> vote is in favour of VPC over VB.
> Just my 2 cents.

I'm still undecided. I'm only running Win2000 in it, and it appears to be
much more robust then VPC. I need to play more.

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Steve Jain - 30 Jul 2008 17:59 GMT

>>> Anyone here tried the current version of VirtualBox? I'm playing with it
>>> now to see which I like better. So far, VB seems to run much faster then
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
>Most don't seem to have done so. Maybe I should write a comparison?

You're saying the users at the virtualbox forums aren't using
VirtualBox?

>One weakness of Virtual PC is it's emulated display adaptor. VB uses a
>"VirtualBox Graphics Adapter". I'm not sure what it emulates, but it is
>flexible and robust.

VBox doesn't emulate a video card, its a software-based card, if you
use a non-supported OS, you don't get much choice in resolutions. VPC
has a very standard and basic video card that allows for a lot greater
compatibility with older OSes.

>One of my biggest complaints about VPC is you can't put
>it into 1680x1050 mode. With VB, you not only can, but you can actually
>resize the entire window dynamically, and it changes it's resolution to
>match. For example, right now I have it in 1264x409 because that is the size

VPC allows dynamic resizing, always has.

>I resized it to. It seems to accept any combination of height and width up
>to the resolution of the host adaptor. And it doesn't just scale the
>display - it actually changes it's resolution according to the size of the
>VB windows.

VPC doesn't scale the display either, it dynamically changes the
resolution also.

VirtualBox and VPC are very similar in a lot of ways...Innotek worked
with Connectix to make the OS/2 version of Virtual PC.

Signature

Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/
I do not work for Microsoft.

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